Italy’s new leaders get tough on migrants

ROME—Italy’s new “Italians first” government claimed victory Monday when the Spanish prime minister offered safe harbor to a private rescue ship after Italy and Malta refused to allow it permission to disembark its 629 migrant passengers in their ports.

The Aquarius, a rescue vessel operated by aid group SOS Mediterranee, has been stuck in the Mediterranean Sea since Saturday, when Italy refused its crew permission to dock and demanded that Malta do so. Malta refused on Sunday.

Spain’s new Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sanchez stepped in Monday, ordering authorities in Valencia to prepare for the ship’s arrival.

“It’s our duty to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe and offer a secure port for these people,” Sanchez said.

Both the ship and its passengers were caught up in a political dispute that might not have happened weeks ago.

One of the coalition partners in the populist government that took over in Italy on June 1, the right-wing League, promised voters other European Union countries would be made to share the burden of caring for asylumwho set out for Europe on unseaworthy smugglers’ boats.

“Evidently it pays to raise one’s voice, something Italy hasn’t done as long as one can remember,” Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, the League’s leader, said Monday at party headquarters.

For those aboard the Aquarius, Spain’s offer of docking rights at the port of Valencia was welcome news, although it did not provide a quick or easy solution. By Monday evening, the ship was more than 1,400 kilometers (over 750 nautical miles) from Valencia and still awaiting formal instructions to head to Spain as weather forecasts predicted worsening conditions.

It was unclear if the days of sailing west it would take to get to Spain were feasible, SOS Mediterranee Maritime Operations Manager Antoine Laurent said. The traumatized, exhausted passengers include 120 minors, many of them traveling alone, and seven pregnant women. Several migrants had water in their lungs, suffered hypothermia or burns from a mix of boat fuel and seawater while in their traffickers’ boats.

Malta had food and water ferried Monday to the Aquarius, which was running out of supplies.

“The situation is stable but it cannot run” on forever, Laurent said.

Associated Press ■ The rescue vessel Aquarius approaches the Pozzallo harbor on June 1 in Southern Italy. Spain stepped up Monday and offered to take in a rescue ship carrying more than 600 migrants after Italy and Malta refused. Italy and Malta quickly thanked Spain’s...